Lord Woolf faces dilemma over life sentences

Next month, David Blunkett will be publishing his guidelines for punishing murderers by tabling an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill. This will set out "a clear set of principles within which judges will fix minimum tariffs" for murderers, who are currently sentenced to automatic life imprisonment. Though the new framework will not be binding on the courts, judges will have to give reasons in open court if they depart from principles laid down by Parliament.

So far, Mr Blunkett has announced only one guideline. "For the most serious crimes, such as the sexual, sadistic murder of children, life should mean life," he said last November, after the law lords ruled that his powers to set minimum terms for adult murderers in England and Wales were incompatible with the Human Rights Convention.

But Lord Woolf's own guidelines, issued just six months earlier, appear more lenient. For the murder of a child, or where there was evidence of sadism or sexual maltreatment, the "starting point" should be 15 or 16 years, he said.

This must be reduced for a timely plea of guilty or if there is clear evidence of remorse or contrition. The minimum period is increased if the killing was planned, if a firearm was used or if it was the culmination of cruel or violent behaviour.

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Under Lord Woolf's practice statement, currently in force, only a handful of murderers can expect to spend the rest of their lives in prison. In the "most serious cases - for example, those involving a substantial number of murders or several factors identified as attracting the higher starting point … the result might even be a minimum term of 30 years," he said, explaining that this was the equivalent, after remission, of a 60-year fixed sentence.

Lord Woolf continued: "In cases of exceptional gravity, the judge, rather than setting a whole-life minimum term, can state that there is no minimum period which can properly be set in that particular case."

Minimum punishment periods recommended by trial judges or the Lord Chief Justice have been regularly increased by successive Home Secretaries. It is because Mr Blunkett has effectively lost the power to set tariffs in murder cases that he is seeking a sentencing grid enshrined in primary legislation.

However, Lord Woolf's statement last May was designed to keep the punishment for murder in line with that for other very serious offences, such as manslaughter, rape and causing grievous bodily harm. Mr Blunkett's proposals are bound to unbalance this sentencing structure. Lord Woolf will have the chance to comment on Mr Blunkett's proposals when they are debated in the House of Lords, but he should not wait until then to give his response.

Unless he is prepared to abandon the existing guidelines, he runs the risk of being portrayed by the Home Secretary as "soft" on murder.